Film producer Carlo Ponti, Jan. 9

Film producer Carlo Ponti, Jan. 9

AP, file

Film producer Carlo Ponti, Jan. 9 Carlo Ponti, the Italian producer of films such as La Strada, Doctor Zhivago and Blowup and the longtime husband of Oscar-winning actress Sophia Loren, whom he discovered as a teenager, died in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2007. He was 94. During a decades-long career that reflected the rise of Italian neo-realism and the French New Wave, Ponti was a producer on more than 140 movies. Ponti also produced Vittorio De Sica's Two Women, a 1960 Italian World War II drama that earned Loren an Oscar for best actress. As a producer, Ponti once said: "I like the cinema because you imagine a thing and after a while you see it. Just like building a house. You construct a building from raw materials, and with films you give life to things that don't exist." Ponti and Loren are shown here in 1976.

Film producer Carlo Ponti, Jan. 9 Carlo Ponti, the Italian producer of films such as La Strada, Doctor Zhivago and Blowup and the longtime husband of Oscar-winning actress Sophia Loren, whom he discovered as a teenager, died in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2007. He was 94. During a decades-long career that reflected the rise of Italian neo-realism and the French New Wave, Ponti was a producer on more than 140 movies. Ponti also produced Vittorio De Sica's Two Women, a 1960 Italian World War II drama that earned Loren an Oscar for best actress. As a producer, Ponti once said: "I like the cinema because you imagine a thing and after a while you see it. Just like building a house. You construct a building from raw materials, and with films you give life to things that don't exist." Ponti and Loren are shown here in 1976. (AP, file)

Film producer Carlo Ponti, Jan. 9 Carlo Ponti, the Italian producer of films such as La Strada, Doctor Zhivago and Blowup and the longtime husband of Oscar-winning actress Sophia Loren, whom he discovered as a teenager, died in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2007. He was 94. During a decades-long career that reflected the rise of Italian neo-realism and the French New Wave, Ponti was a producer on more than 140 movies. Ponti also produced Vittorio De Sica's Two Women, a 1960 Italian World War II drama that earned Loren an Oscar for best actress. As a producer, Ponti once said: "I like the cinema because you imagine a thing and after a while you see it. Just like building a house. You construct a building from raw materials, and with films you give life to things that don't exist." Ponti and Loren are shown here in 1976.